Examining A Nightmare
by Hazmatt
Summary: Mac wakes up from an nightmare and examines it so he can put the demons raised by what he sees to rest. Contains spoilers for the end of season five and the beginning of season six.


**Author's Note:** This is the first CSI New York story I've ever finished, and as such the first I've placed on this site. Spoilers for the end of season five and the beginning of season six. I could believe how season six started, I kept telling myself that it all had to be a dream that someone was having, so I made it one. This come to me with the opening line, which originally was going to be "Mac woke up screaming..." but that wouldn't have worked as I'm sure you'll see, while I was reading a Bones story by HollywoodDramaQueen called "Home Invaison", which had absolutely nothing to do with the content of this story but was adorable, and while watching Law and Order SVU, which I have taken to watching recently, which again had no insight into this story. I figured that I might as well write it down before I forgot the concept or over developed it in my mind and forgot all the details. I hope you like it! Please let me know what you think as it is my first for this series!

Enjoy,

Hazmat

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Mac woke up on the verge of screaming, barely able to restrain himself from letting loose an agonised sound. The nightmare he had just experienced had rivalled those he had got often during and after his time in the Marines. As Mac slowed his breathing he thought back on the horrific images that had recently been playing through his head.

It had started innocently enough, his friend Jessica Angell, Detective second grade had been having breakfast at a diner while escorting a witness for the prosecution to his trial at the courthouse down the street. It didn't stay innocent for long…

_Gun fire erupted, the diner was in shambles and there on the ground lay Jess. Don rushed to her side, having been on the phone with her when the shooting had started. He called for an ambulance, but it was taking too long so he got her in a squad car and he drove her to the hospital himself. It was there that he received horrible news. Not long after getting her there, Jess had lost her fight and died. Don was devastated and no one could blame him, his girlfriend had just been killed, murdered and all for money! They found the men responsible for her death and while alone with the man who fired the fatal shot, Don fired one of his own._

That was hard for Mac to stomach, not only that Jess could possibly be dead, but that Don had killed her murderer in cold blood! That wasn't what they did! Things just got worse from there though…

_The team met at Sullivan's to toast to Jess and honour her passing, trying not to let their grief overwhelm them as they knew that she wouldn't want them to dwell on her death, but enjoy their lives. Stella was just starting to commend their friend when a silver sedan had slowly pulled by the front windows of the bar and let loose a barrage of automatic gun fire. The team hit the deck, but the damage had been done, Danny couldn't move his legs._

Mac took a deep breath and tried to reconcile himself with a Danny Messer not constantly in motion, no longer fidgeting or bouncing on the balls of his feet. It was hard to do. Mac knew that if he stopped examining the contents of dream that it would have power over him, something Mac couldn't allow to happen, so he continued to remember…

_Mac had become a man obsessed with solving the case, his office had for the most part become a shrine to the evidence that they just couldn't seem to completely piece together. Danny gave him a call about a tip he had received and while they went to interview the woman, to try to find out what she knew, Stella was across town at Adam's apartment. While Mac and Danny had encountered another bout of gun fire where their potential informant, a young woman, was killed, Stella had been engaged in an ill-advised one night stand with their resident tech geek._

The last part almost made Mac sick. He could stomach Jess being gunned down and Danny being paralysed, but the thought of Stella doing _that_ with Adam was something that he couldn't wrap his head around. The ending of this nightmare had been a little less intense…

_The team had pieced together the clues and found the scum responsible for Danny's predicament and the young woman's death, Stella broached Mac in a friendly manner in an attempt to draw him back to her and out of the funk that had led her to Adam's bed, and Danny, well Danny got the best gift of any of them. He got hope. He had managed to move his toes and now was determined to regain the use of his legs, a goal the entire lab was convinced he could achieve._

With the last of the nightmare relived to his waking brain, Mac was able to refute the images with fact. Jess was perfectly fine, her witness having made it to the courthouse in time to testify against his father for a reduced sentence. There was no shoot-out at the bar, but instead a joyous gathering to celebrate Dunbrook's arraignment and incarceration. No shoot-out meant that Danny was still bouncing about the lab and that Mac had not gotten obsessed.

He looked down at the bed beside him and smiled for the first time since being gripped by the nightmare he had experienced. Damn she was beautiful. Despite how it may sound, the most important contradiction between real life and the movie in his head was the fact that Stella had never slept with Adam. He felt the bed shift and smiled again, looking down to gaze at her sleeping form. Stella really was an angel when she slept, she was all the time really as far as Mac was concerned, but especially when she slept.

Mac knew for a fact that Stella would never have reason to seek out comfort in another man's arms as he had come to an important realization while they had been in Greece and had summoned the courage to share that revelation with Stella… he loved her. They had wasted no time and were now blissfully married.

Stella shifted in her sleep again and Mac's smile grew larger. Stella had been having trouble finding a comfortable sleeping position for the last four months and the problem was only going to get worse for the next couple of months to come, and Mac wouldn't have it any other way. It was to experience moments like these that Mac would fight tooth and nail to prevent his nightmare from becoming a reality.

Stella was pregnant.

The bed shifted again and this time Mac's gaze was met by a pair of sleepy green eyes smiling back at him filled with open affection.

"I love you Stella."

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**Author's Note:** What did you think? Please let me know! Thanks for reading, Hazmat.


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